the sky the sea the city

#the sky the sea the city

Ayisha Abraham | Surekha | Pushpamala N

As old houses give way to apartment dwellings, landscapes of living and relationships transform. The solitary aging security guard appears muted by his job, confined within prescribed boundaries set for him. Ayisha Abraham discovers that they are farmers, gardeners, potters, etc. with unique experiences and memories spanning the past and present. She finds herself fascinated by the emergence of underground spaces in the city and the subterranean social world that begins to thrive in these hidden places.

Surekha’s works in this show contemplate on water, sea, river. The people gaze at the sea as if waiting for someone to arrive, unperturbed by the sea waves. Both time and sea carry moments and waves, as the basic documents of human experience through the ages. The narratives of migration, diaspora and the oceanic life among other innumerable sagas of myth and history are what the sea contains to anybody who cares to listen.

The great metropolis is the site for the adventures of the irrepressible heroine/artist Pushpamala . In the Return of the Phantom Lady (Sinful City), the Phantom Lady rescues an orphaned school girl and exposes the land mafia in a photo-romance set in cinematic locales in the city of Bombay/Mumbai. Paris Autumn, a film constructed of still images, shows the artist as flaneur, investigating the violent history of the city known as the centre of civilization and culture.